The present invention relates to cooling fans for electronic devices, and, in particular, to a multi-fan modular cooling component that can be easily installed in, and removed from, an electronic device.
Modern electronic devices, such as personal computers (xe2x80x9cPCsxe2x80x9d), servers, network multiplexors, and disk arrays, among others, contain many densely packed heat-producing electronic components, such as power supplies, microprocessor chips, and disk drives. In order to maintain the internal temperature of such electronic devices below temperatures at which electronic components begin to fail, cooling fans are commonly employed to produce air streams. Heat from the internal heat-producing electronic components is transferred to the air streams and dissipated to the environment outside the electronic device. As electronic devices grow more complex, and contain more heat-producing components, the number of internal cooling fans employed to control temperatures within electronic devices has increased. This increasing number of internal cooling fans represents an increasing number of critical failure points within electronic devices, as well as an increasing maintenance overhead.
FIG. 1 shows a portion of the housing an internal support framework of a server computer along with several installed cooling fans. The server computer housing 102 encloses a number of different component bays, including component bay 104 and component bay 106. Proximal portions of the component bays 104 and 106 may contain disk drives, printed circuit boards, or other heat-producing electronic components, and a distal portions of component bays 104 and 106 may contain power supplies or other heat-producing electronic components. A cooling fan 108 is positioned in the middle of bay 104, and a second cooling fan 110 is positioned in the middle of bay 106. Each cooling may draw a current of air over one portion of the bay in which it is installed and force a current of air over the opposite portion of the bay, depending on the direction of rotation of the fan blades and the pitch orientation of the fan blades.
The current techniques for installing cooling fans within electronic devices, such as electronic devices shown in FIG. 1 often require the cooling fans to be separately mounted within the electronic device via attachment devices such as screws 111-115 and brackets 116-118. This, in turn, requires a relatively large number of cooling-fan-related parts, significant assembly time, and a relatively lengthy disassembly and reassembly process for replacing cooling fans or for removing cooling fans in order to diagnose improperly functioning cooling fans. Moreover, modem multi-component-bay electronic devices, such as the device shown in FIG. 1, may be designed for insertion of additional disk drives, printed circuit boards, and power supplies, in a modular fashion, after manufacture of the device. In such cases, either a cooling fan needs to be initially installed in an empty component bay, during manufacture, or a time consuming cooling fan installation needs to precede addition of modular heat-producing components to an initially unused component bay. Thus, manufacturers of electronic devices and electronic device repair and maintenance professionals have recognized the need for an easily installable and removable cooling component for use in multi-component-bay electronic devices. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In one embodiment of the present invention, two cooling fans are incorporated into a rectangular fan housing of a modular cooling component (xe2x80x9cMCCxe2x80x9d). The rectangular fan housing includes a handle to facilitate insertion of the MCC into, and removal of the MCC from, an electronic device. The MCC includes a plastic adapter plug to which both fans are electronically connected to a power supply and to various signal lines of the electronic device. The MCC is held in place by a mounted thumbscrew that mates with a complementary receptacle mounted to a housing of the electronic device into which the MCC is inserted. When the MCC is resident within a multi-component-bay electronic device, the first fan is positioned to produce an air stream within a first component bay of the electronic device and the second fan is positioned to produce an air stream within the second component bay of the electronic device.